I spent several days in Washington, D. C., last week and visited war monuments and museums. The first war monument that I visited was the World War II Memorial because my father was a proud veteran of that war. Unfortunately, he did not live long enough to see the memorial come to reality. As I walked around the memorial, I encountered a few veterans that were visiting the memorial in wheelchairs. They were there because of the Honor Flight Network.
There was a small monument dedicated to the residents of Washington DC who lost their life in World War I. It had inscribed the names of every Washington DC resident who died in that war.
Then, I came across the Korean War monument. I was captivated by this monument. Unlike the other monuments, this monument was full of statues of men who looked as if they were in the middle of a march. I felt that a monument like this would have been a better monument to honor the military men of World War II.
The last war monument that I visited was the Vietnam veterans' memorial. Like the Washington DC WWI memorial to its dead, recorded the names of all of its dead. Although I am glad that there is a monument to those who died in the Vietnam war, I would have like it to be like the Korean War memorial. I found the name of one of my classmates on that wall. I found myself choked with emotion.
The next day, I went to the Portrait Gallery and the Holocaust Museum. As I viewed the portraits of our presidents. I found myself looking at their eyes. I have blue eyes but had learned at some time that blue eyes are recessive. As I looked at these portraits, I was struck by the number of blue eyed presidents. The majority of our presidents had blue, gray-blue, gray and hazel eyes.
Then, I visited the Holocaust Museum. I had no idea that Hitler also targeted freemasons. Fourteen of our presidents were freemasons and 14 of our vice presidents were freemasons. Our founding father, George Washington, was a freemason. But the most chilling moment that I took away from my visit was how much our president's rhetoric sounds like Adolph Hitler.
